Are Your Taxes Paying for the Cost of Your Street?

The author was addressing the opposite situation -- people using more than what they pay for.

> It would be just as ridiculous to write an article about how "people with children in schools aren't paying the cost of the school"

A more similar analogy to what the author was pointing out would be that current taxpayers will receive more Social Security benefit over their lifetimes than the future value of their lifetime payments, meaning that the system is only financially sound if we assume the working population will grow at an appropriate rate such that we'll always have enough workers to pay for retirees.

Or, adjusting the analogies you provided: we are borrowing from other countries to pay for our schools and fire departments. This happens to be true. Is it bad? Unknown.

It’s simple – here’s how it works: Say a community is built in Year 1. The community’s streets need to be rebuilt every 30 years. In Year 30 a new, identical community is built. Now twice the amount of taxes are coming, and so for time being the property owners only need to pay half the amount. And 30 years later, in Year 60, two new communities are built; as long as the number of properties and property taxes are doubling every 30 years, they can continue to pay half the amount.

Year 1, one community (community A), over the next 30 years is going to pay for 1 community's worth of roads (call it a 30 year loan given on day 1, let's say 1M dollars). So, the cost for community A is 1M dollars for 30 community-years of roads.

Year 30, we add a new community B to the mix. This community needs its own roads, so it needs a loan for 1M dollars it will pay off over the next 30 years. However, community A's roads have worn out. Community A just finished paying off their first loan, so they'll need a new one.

At year 60, we have paid 3M dollars, and gotten 90 "community-years" of roads out of it. This is no different than the equivalent end of the first year with one community, one loan, and 30 "community-years" of roads.

What am i missing from this example?

It is obvious there are some out there who would live in the city provided they could find a place they felt was worth the cost, provided the safety they require, and access to amenities they desire. However many cities have rule after rule to prevent such from being built or load on requires that blow the cost out by requiring specific number of low cost units forcing all other units up in price.